Tuesday, November 13, 2012

Is “P.” the key to GOPers getting Latino backing?

I’m never sure what to think of the speculation that George P. Bush will someday be president of the United States, and also is a key toward helping Latinos overcome the level of hostility they now show toward Republican candidates.

BUSH: Will he close the Latino gap?

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I suppose anything is possible. But the fact that the Bush family that already has given this country two presidents has some Latino “blood” in it just doesn’t strike me as being the overriding factor that’s going to overcome the GOP problems that exist with Latinos these days.

FOR THOSE OF you who don’t follow all the details of who’s who on the political scene, George P. Bush is a grand-son to the first President Bush, and a nephew to the second.

He’s also the son of Jeb Bush, the one-time Florida governor whom some think will someday run his own bid for president. Jeb married Columba, who is of Mexican ethnic origins.

So the theory goes that when the youngest Bush (he’s 36) starts running for office, we Latinos will be able to see ourselves in a Republican candidate. And it might, just might, get us to overcome the knee-jerk reaction many of us have developed in recent years to anyone with an “R” affixed to their names.

Then again, it might not!

GEORGE P. BUSH (the “P.” is for “Prescott,” who was his great-grandfather) has never held elective office. Although in recent days, he filed the paperwork necessary so that he might someday be a candidate for office in Texas.

There is some speculation he might go for state attorney general, although nothing is definite. He may not even run for office any time in the immediate future. He may decide it’s worth waiting for an election cycle or two until the blatant Latino hostility to the “Grand Old Party” settles down.

BUSH: Namesake of first Latino president?

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If it settles down!

For there are those who are going to view the increased Latino backing of Barack Obama’s presidential aspirations (69 percent support, or 71 percent or 75 percent, depending on which exit poll one trusts) as all the more reason to step up the partisan fight, George P. may decide that he doesn’t want to get caught in their cross-fire.

THEN AGAIN, I’M not sure how receptive the Latino activist types will be to the idea of voting for a Bush. Yes, he’s a Latino; moreso than many other individuals going about in our society.

But he’ll get bogged down in some rhetorical nonsense that he’s not Latino enough to claim to be among us. (Although those of us whose brains are clogged with political trivia will remember the “little brown one” reference that the original President Bush once used to describe his grandson).

So it may well be a bit of wishful thinking for people to envision a man named “Prescott” as the guy who’s going to help close the gap in terms of the overwhelming Latino preference these days for Democratic Party political people.

Although it is a step that the Republican Party is going to have to take if they’re going to wish to remain relevant in our society.

THEY MAY DREAM of picking people like Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., for higher office because he actually aspires to be just like all those Tea Party types.

Which is going to make him appear to be so unlike the rest of my ethnic brethren that they’re not likely to sway over to him.

Somehow, I think at this point in time, George P. Bush runs the risk of becoming another Rubio (or that Cruz guy in Texas) if he’s not careful.

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I am a Chicago-area freelance writer who has reported on various political and legal beats. I wrote "Hispanic" issues columns for United Press International, observed up close the Statehouse Scene in Springfield, Ill., and for a time, I also wrote about agriculture. Trust me when I say the symbolic stench of partisan politics (particularly when directed against people due to their ethnicity) is far nastier than any odor that could come from a farm animal.